The Second-Guessing
by Lynne Porcelain
Summary: Gumball accidentally did something he shouldn't have done, and it's turning his family against him. He swears it wasn't his fault, but can he get his family to understand? Through a series of talks, he'll try to set things straight.


**A/N: Hi, everyone. This is my first Gumball fanfic, though I plan to write more in the future. Enjoy! - Lynne**

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The Second-Guessing

"Are you going to sit there all day?"

"No, I-"

"Are you going to explain yourself?"

"I can't if you're-"

"You've really done it this time. I don't even know how you managed to mess things up so badly."

"Just let me-"

"Oh, I know. Because you didn't think, as usual. Act first, think later. Let everybody else pick up the pieces. That's how it always goes. Mom might not admit it, but she's really tired of you acting up all the time. She doesn't know what to do with you."

"Wh-What? Mom loves me!"

"No, she doesn't! If you would actually get your head out of the clouds, you'd know that!"

"What about Dad?"

"Oh, Dad gave up on you _years _ago."

"It's not true! It's not! Why are you lying to me like this?"

"I don't _tell _lies."

"What am I gonna do?"

"Stop doing stupid stuff like this, and maybe once Mom has had maybe another five years' worth of counselling, she might actually want to spend time with you again."

"And Dad?"

"Darwin's his favourite. We both know that."

Gumball didn't have to ask Anais for her opinion of him Her scathing tone told him everything he needed to know. He lay in the bottom bunk, red, bloodshot eyes wide open. From stress or crying, he didn't know. He gulped, the motion feeling as if something hard and lumpy was stuck in his throat. Gumball couldn't bring himself to look his younger sister in the eye, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel the intense pressure of her gaze boring down upon him.

Without another word, he effortlessly rolled onto his left side, facing the wall now. Maybe it would be easier for him to sleep if he couldn't see the tiny rabbit out of the corner of his eye. It was three in the afternoon, but it may as well have been three in the morning. He was exhausted and was in no mood to converse any further. He could _sense _Anais' protests rising up inside her before she opened her mouth, but that didn't give him much more time to prepare a defense against them.

"Are you even _listening _to me?!" Her shrill voice was like a siren.

Gumball said nothing.

"I've been telling you how to improve your behaviour for the last fifteen minutes! What have you been doing, blocking me out? That's what got you into this mess in the first place! Ugh!"

She went to storm out of the bedroom they all shared in a huff, but she did not account for the seething blue figure in the doorway. Fearsome feline eyes and claws instinctively drawn. Nicole was not going to hurt anyone. Not physically, at least.

When their mother spoke, it was in an eerily calm tone, the kind where you know that the individual was deliberately holding themselves back. Anais had been shrieking so loudly at her cat brother that both parents could hear them from the living room. Richard and Nicole had drawn straws to decide on who was going to have to traverse the staircase and sort this mess out. Momma cat lost. Which is why she was standing in the doorway. Anais' ears flew back in preparation for a verbal assault that never came.

"Anais, would you go play with your father for a bit? He's really struggling with a puzzle and he needs your help."

A forced lie that the rabbit saw straight through, but she didn't need to be told twice. She slipped through her mother's legs and carefully made her way downstairs.

It was unclear as to whether Gumball picked up on the falsehood or not. He wasn't really listening. He was much more preoccupied by the poster of a pug on his bedroom wall. He didn't hear his mother sneaking up on him. Nicole was now standing at his bedside, body level with his head. A long, long sigh, and a quiet voice.

But Gumball spoke first. "Are you mad at me?"

"No, Gumball, I'm not mad at you."

"Anais said that you hated me."

A barely restrained gasp. "She said _what? _I'll have to have a talk with her later. No, Gummypuss, that couldn't be further from the truth. You're my son. I love you all unconditionally."

"You really mean that?"

"Yes."

"Even though I accidentally blew up the school?"

A noticeable pause followed. Nicole had already made things awkward, but she pushed through and gave him a half-hearted response. "Yes. Even though you… You blew up the school and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth in damages which will be coming out of my monthly paycheck and my Christmas bonus."

The longer she went on for, the more unconvinced of her love for her own child she became. She knew Gumball could tell that something was up because he hadn't responded, and that made her feel horrible.

"Gumball?"

"I can run away if you want. So I won't be a… A financial burden."

This came as a shock to his mother. "What? No, don't be silly."

"Anais said Dad doesn't love me either."

"Gumball, I love you and so does your father, and that's final. You're not going to run away. You belong _here, _in a house with a loving family. Maybe you should get some sleep. It'll make you feel better. I'll call you when dinner's ready later, okay?"

"Okay, Mom." He sighed, finally turning back over to face her. Her sincerely caring expression made his anxieties melt away, and he felt guilty for turning his back on her for so long. Running away… What was he thinking?

"Rest well, Gummypuss." Nicole hugged him firmly, and it took all of five seconds before Gumball started _bawling. _

"I'm so sorry!" He cried into his mother's shoulder. "I'm sorry for everything! I… I didn't mean to do it! Tobias dared me to mix the wrong things in chemistry class and I did it without thinking! I'm sorry!"

Nicole gave him a few moments to calm down, hugging him tighter instinctively in the process, before she replied in a hushed tone, "I forgive you. We _all _forgive you, because that's what families do. Forgive each other."

"Even Anais?"

"Even Anais. I'm sure that deep down, we all feel the same way about what happened. But we're all different, and we all express our feelings and emotions differently. I wanted to make sure you were alright, and Anais did too, in her own way. I'll be talking to her about what she said to you soon."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome." She gently eased herself out of the hug with some noticeable hesitation, and looked down at her snivelling child.

Though he was still visibly upset and felt oh so guilty, his eyelids were growing heavy. Nicole didn't want to say anything more for fear of making him wide awake again, and so pulled his blanket over him, making him wriggle slightly. She kissed him on the forehead and quietly exited the room. On her way out, she turned the computer monitor off and pulled the curtains on the window down to block out the intense rays of the sun.

She hadn't made it five feet down the hallway before she felt scales brush against her legs. Darwin had been eavesdropping on both conversations from the relative safety of the top of the stairs. He played it off like he wasn't doing anything wrong as a seething Anais passed him- even to the point of whistling, and as far as he was concerned, that meant that he was in the clear. Maybe, just maybe, he could trick his mother in the same way.

"Hi, Mrs. Mom!" The fish beamed, his hands nervously meeting each other behind his back.

Nicole gave him a weak smile. She was just about to let her front drop, revealing her true worried and exhausted self, before she ran into her adopted son. It would take her some time to build the front back up mentally, even if Darwin might not have noticed that anything was different about her behaviour. Being the naïve goldfish that he was, he rarely ever did. And even then, it was because he had picked up clues from his other siblings about it first.

"Hi, sweetie. Are you feeling okay?" Perfect act, Nicole. Ten out of ten.

Darwin nodded profusely. "Uh-huh! I was just gonna go get something from my room."

Nicole tried her hardest not to give her child who needed the most love a suspicious look. The awkward pause would have been a dead giveaway to anyone in the world other than Darwin. And Richard, of course. So, she nodded slowly back and warned him, "Well, be careful. Your brother's sleeping."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Mom. I'll be careful, I promise!" An unnaturally human-looking hand appeared at the end of one of his fins, showing that indeed, his fingers were crossed.

However, his other hand also had its fingers crossed behind him. He thought he was being so incredibly sneaky that Nicole couldn't possibly know what he was up to, but forgot that she was much taller than him and so could clearly see his other hand. Luckily for him, she was too tired to confront him about it. She knew what his real plan was, and honestly, she didn't care. The coffee on the kitchen counter was calling her name- literally.

"Okay." She gave him a more genuine grin and descended the staircase.

The second she was out of sight, Darwin sped through his bedroom door. It was incredibly dark for three o'clock, he thought, before seeing that the curtains were simply drawn. He closed the door softly behind him and called out into the darkness.

"Gumball? Gumball!"

A mumble came from over by the bunkbeds, too muffled for the fish to make out, and so he called again.

"Gumball?"

This time, he received a clear answer. An incredibly groggy answer, but an answer nonetheless.

"… Yeah?"

"I got you some cookies!" He whispered, producing some delicious-looking chocolate chip ones from out of seemingly nowhere.

Strangely, they gave off an almost holy glow that engulfed the entire room in soft golden light, and he held them up above his head. Then, just as it had appeared, it went, leaving the room pitch-black once more. Darwin remedied this by making a beeline for the window and pulling the curtains open with enough force to almost rip them right off. A technique he learned from his mother's attempts to get them out of bed on a school day, though mercifully without the shouting.

Gumball instinctively hissed as the bright light pierced his eyes. Through the window, a muffled "Sorry!" from the sun could be heard.

Within seconds, Darwin was by his side, tasty treats in hand. The cat didn't waste any time in snatching half of them from his brother in a somewhat aggressive manner and wolfing them down one after the other. All that doubt and talking and worrying had made him hungry. The inseparable duo shared a knowing look, and they both burst out laughing.

"I knew you wouldn't be mad at me." Gumball admitted decisively.

Darwin raised a non-existent eyebrow. "Mad? Why would I be mad at you?"

Gumball blinked. Had he really forgotten already? They were sent home a few hours ago while the fire department helped pull the last of the children out of the rubble. Then, once they had walked to their mother's car, the initial confrontation began, where she had released most of her energy for the day. Darwin was in the back seat next to him while all that was going down. And there's no way he couldn't hear Anais' ranting. Was he just playing dumb to make him feel better about what he had done?

"Gumball."

Darwin's repetition of his name made him jerk back to reality after a quick tour of Daydreamville. He blinked again, and asked, "Yeah?"

"I was gonna ask you whether or not you wanted the last cookie. I already ate five downstairs, and that was before Mr. Dad got to them. So this cookie is the last cookie in the house, and I want you to have it." He explained with a smile.

The blue cat looked over at his brother with his bloodshot eyes. "Are you really sure?"

"Yeah! You need it more than me anyway."

Gumball gingerly reached out and grasped the cookie, savouring the taste this time. Who knows when he'd get the chance to have another cookie? He was probably grounded forever, and even if he wasn't, his mother's financial situation was going to be even worse now. So he broke it off in pieces and ate it as if he was eating his last meal. Very slowly. Not a crumb was wasted. Darwin sat on the computer chair opposite the bunkbeds and swivelled around to face Gumball. Once he had finished his cookie, the younger brother broke the silence.

"I know Tobias made you do it. It's his fault. Not yours. I told Principal Brown before we left the school."

"Did he believe you?" Gumball asked, not even trying to hide the fear in his voice.

"Yeah! Alan saw what happened too! So we went to his office together. He wasn't there because his office was a pile of dirt now, so we went to the teachers' lounge, that was still standing, and told him everything. Alan backed me up, and 'cause Alan never lies, Principal Brown _knew _we were telling the truth!"

"Really? Wow…" Gumball breathed a sigh of relief. But he knew he wasn't out of the woods yet. "So… Am I still in trouble?"

"No! They're gonna make Tobias' parents pay for the damages instead, and he's suspended all month. You're not in trouble."

There was a brief pause as the weight of Darwin's words rang through the air. It took the older brother a few moments to process them. When it finally sunk in, his visage changed completely. Bright cheeks, warm eyes and an infectious grin. He instantly leapt from his bed and yelled, "Yes! Yes yes yes!"

He rounded off the celebration by doing an odd kind of victory dance with his brother providing the beat. Ten seconds into it, Gumball jumped towards Darwin and wrapped his arms around him.

"Thank you, thank you, _thank _you!" He cried in joy, only lifting his head from Darwin's non-existent shoulder to ask, "Does anyone else know?"

The fish gave Gumball a guilty expression and nervously rubbed his arm. "Well, I kinda didn't tell Mrs. Mom or Mr. Dad or Anais because I thought they already knew. Then I heard what they said to you. I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay, dude." The cat responded honestly. "Why don't we go downstairs and tell them together? I already told Mom, but it'll be more believable with you there, too. Actually, I'll just let you do the talking."

"That sounds like the best thing to do." Darwin agreed, and they shared a fist bump of solidarity.

Despite not wanting to be the one to have this talk with the rest of the family, Gumball still took the lead out of instinct, leaving Darwin to have to catch up and walk behind him as usual. He didn't really mind, though. Especially not this time. He was too caught up in the excitement of spreading the good news to care. Darwin took one last look at his now empty bedroom and closed the door behind him. Happiness awaited downstairs.

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**A/N: So, how was it? Leave a review and tell me what you thought! I'll use your feedback to make my future stories better. Goodbye for now! - Lynne**


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